West Virginia House OKs 2 percent teacher, trooper raises

Alma Romero |Thursday, February 15, 2018

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Democrat Shawn Fluharty is the lead sponsor of the bill, but it has garnered bi-partisan support with Republican co-sponsors and advocates. The GOP maintains a 51-49 majority, but the utility regulation bill is so controversial that opposition crosses party lines. This bill also cuts a refund check for Virginia's ratepayers that is just pennies on the dollar in comparison to what the utility has overcharged as estimated by the State Corporation Commission (SCC). But the costs never materialized and the Trump administration has killed the CPP.

"Northern Virginia is the economic engine of the state", said Sen.

"I think they all decided, 'Well, we can't take the chance that this could get spun as an anti-consumer vote", he said.

To effectively monitor betting and protect sports from integrity risks, casinos must be required to share information in real-time with the sports leagues, cooperate with the sports leagues in their internal investigations and report abnormal betting activity to them. The UBS note praised Dominion as being "adept at navigating VA politics" and added 5 percent to the expected value of its business in expectation of the General Assembly passing a favorable regulatory overhaul. The House amendment merely clarified that point.

Dominion Energy, the utility monopoly in Virginia, suffered a rare loss on the floor of the state House of Delegates late Monday night, when their ability to double-charge ratepayers for infrastructure improvements was stripped out of a controversial bill.

"The House has endorsed everything in the bill". Introduced by Delegate Terry Kilgore (R-Wise County) & Delegate Lamont Bagby (D-Richmond), HB 1588 was improved greatly by an amendment introduced by Delegate David Toscano (D-Charlottesville) to eliminate the infamous "double dip". "We should be compensated for that", he said. And that's really the backbone of sports betting.

But others say Toscano's amendment does little to fix the legislation.

"The bill that passed today contains a $50 billion giveaway to Dominion to bury power lines using our money without government oversight", said Tom Cormons of Appalachian Voices. We are hopeful the legislature will complete a significant overhaul of the law and bolster the protections.

Northam's spokesperson Ofirah Yheskel reacted to the amendment by saying the office was "reviewing the legislation and will continue to work with the General Assembly to pass the best product we can for Virginians".

For its part, Dominion was cautious.

"We wonder about that cost", Ward said. "We are still studying the effects of the Toscano amendment".